


A New Direction

by Bluewolf458



Series: Blair's Life (AU) [1]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 01:49:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15474825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Naomi leaves home with her three-year-old son





	A New Direction

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018 sentinel bingo prompt 'fork in the road'
> 
> Although I marked it 'no archive warnings apply' there is a reference to date rape.

A New Direction

by Bluewolf

Naomi hummed softly to herself as she drove along the road.

In some ways she was following her nose as she headed north, content that she was escaping from what she considered an oppressive, imprisoning home. And yes, even although her parents had let her go, it _was_ an escape.

She glanced sideways, allowing herself a brief - very brief - look at the three-year-old fastened in the child seat beside her, noting that he seemed to be totally relaxed, completely new though this experience was for him, then returned her attention to the road.

Her parents had been... not exactly accepting of her pregnancy, but at least they had not kicked her out of their house when she told them... though sometimes she thought it would have been better if they had. Instead, they had kept her a virtual prisoner after she went home, already three months pregnant, after her first year at university, unwilling to let their neighbors know that they were soon to have an illegitimate grandchild.

Not that they had needed to let their neighbors think she had been 'loose' during her year at university. Naomi was quite willing to admit that she had been raped - it was, after all, the truth, although it had been date rape; but she was sure her parents didn't believe it, especially when she wouldn't tell them the young man's name. She had known that her father would manage to track Artie down, force them to marry - and the last thing she wanted was to be married to Artie. She had liked him, but after what he did... Liking had turned to hate.

She would even have been willing to lie, and claim she was a widow - that she had married at eighteen while she was at university, and been widowed in a freak accident a few weeks later. But her parents had broadcast something about a nervous breakdown, that she had been unable to deal with the pressure of university life, and kept her totally secluded for the next five months.

At that point they smuggled her out of the house one night and took her to Oklahoma City, where she and her mother stayed, ostensibly on vacation, for the next month, and where her child was born. Her father returned home; he could have stayed away, because the family was rich enough that he didn't have to work, but he decided that it was not a good idea to leave their house standing empty for several weeks.

While she was there, Naomi supposed that she had reached a fork in the road.

If she gave her child for adoption, as her parents wanted, she would be 'free' to go out once they returned home, free to be seen, even to socialize... up to a point. Indeed, until Blair was born she had even considered adoption as a possibility. But when he was born and the nurse put him into her arms, she knew she had to keep him, even though he was a permanent reminder of Artie and what he did to her.

A month later, her father rejoined them, and she was smuggled home in the dead of night. Thereafter, she was allowed out occasionally, to walk around their large garden; but they insisted that Blair remain indoors; and she was never allowed to take him outside. He got fresh air by sleeping beside a window that was only closed when the weather was really bad; when he made his first unsteady steps it was around the room that he shared with his mother. The room was Blair's prison, as well as Naomi's.

When he progressed from milk to baby food, his grandmother drove to Houston (although it was further away than Oklahoma City), where she wasn't known, every few weeks to buy it in bulk. And it was in Houston that she also bought his clothes, and disposed of the ones he had outgrown, giving them to a charity shop. Everything was packed into, or taken out of, the car in the middle of the night, even though it was kept in a garage.

His grandparents were fond enough of him; but the appearance of respectability was too strong for them to admit to his existence.

***

When she was twenty-one, Naomi got access to the generous trust fund that had been set up for her when she was born.

She wasn't really happy about discussing her plans with her parents, but knew she had little option but to do so. Her father went with her to buy a car so that she could easily move away at night, her child still unseen.

She drove around in it for a day or two, getting used to it; her mother went with her one day and took her to Houston where they bought a child's seat (which they left hidden in the trunk) and then one night about a week later her mother helped her to pack all Blair's clothes and the one or two toys he had been given, the books Naomi had bought to read to him, and a selection of her own clothes, and loaded everything into the trunk and back seat, while her father fitted the child seat onto the front passenger seat; and then Naomi fastened Blair into the seat, said goodbye to her parents and drove away.

She headed north towards Oklahoma City following the I-35 N. It would, she knew, take about three hours to get there, but she wasn't in any hurry; she could stop there for a day or two to consider her options.

***

Naomi actually stopped at Moore, just outside Oklahoma City itself, where she stayed for a week before moving on northwards. She took time during that week to accustom Blair to being outside, glad that he adapted very readily to no longer being confined indoors.

Something - she didn't know what - was encouraging her to continue traveling north and west, and when she left Moore, she didn't really pay much attention to where she was going.

And then, five days into her fairly leisurely drive, ahead of her, on a very quiet road, she saw that the road forked.

She stopped just short of the junction, and looked at the two possible roads.

She hadn't bothered with a map, sure that even very minor roads would have signs to indicate where they went, but here there was nothing, no sign, just the two roads heading off at pretty well right angles to each other. But the left-hand road seemed to be going north as well as west, while the right-hand road was heading east.

North and west... She started the car, and turned onto the left-hand road.

A few miles along it, she saw a sign beside an open gateway. It said **'FAIRWEATHER CAMP'** , and then in smaller letters, **'If you are looking for an escape from the world, come and join us'.**

She drove about quarter of a mile past it, and stopped. _'If you are looking for an escape from the world, come and join us'._

She had a suspicion that this might be a hippie commune... and while there were aspects of hippie life (what she knew of it) that didn't attract her, some of the ideas they espoused seemed... sensible.

Well, she didn't have to stay. If she didn't like it, she could easily move on.

She turned the car, drove back and up the drive to Fairweather Camp.

It was the start of a way of life that she chose to follow for many years.


End file.
